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With their 20th anniversary receding toward the far horizon, Blyth Power remains one of the most individual, intelligent and fluid bands England has ever spawned. I have from time to time tried to draw people's attention to them through a number of reviews in my earlier days on this site. Now armed with a finer honed writing ability, fashioned through long hours slaving through the twilight hours, and hopefully a wider audience due to the faith people have come to place in my work, it is time to embark on the Fifth Crusade and continue to spread the gospel of Blyth Power.

Formed in late 1983 by singer/drummer Joseph Porter, one of the prime features about the band is their all-consuming individuality. They have a strikingly identifiable and personalised sound built basically around Joseph's epic songs, with their colourful personnel, exotic story lines and crashing, impassioned choruses and it is with a sly sense of mischief that the band will take delight in taunting the least folk-oriented crowd with the sound of accordions, or slipping in a raucous anthem to enliven the atmosphere of a balmy country fayre. There is a totally English quality about their words and music, not in a flag waving and nationalistic sort of way, very often the very opposite. Their heart lies in revelling in the history of their homeland, using references from the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution to tell their tales. But it's not as simple as a straight forward as a history lesson to music. The references that litter their songs are often analogies for more modern day ideas, a Russian doll of imagery or an iceberg with more hidden below the surface than could ever be seen at first glimpse. Musically the band have moved through a ongoing evolution, never losing the Blyth Power sound, but never sounding derivative from one album to the next. Born out of the punk movement that was headed by the likes of Crass and which evolved into the new age traveller scene that would spawn the far better known Levellers, Blyth Power have experimented with their sound from one album to the next, often their hand forced by the constant line up changes.

In 1994, Anagram put out a compilation of the first ten years of their work under the title "Ten Years Inside The Horse", a period which is considered by many to be the bands heyday, covering some seven albums and their most intensive touring commitments. The band was always a "happy dictatorship" Porter has the captain of the ship, which caused

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